Chapter 29

A small blessing of a new chapter within a week of the last! It's a miracle haha!

Thank you to my lovely beta for all her hard work. It really has been an adventure….still no promises about making you cry next chapter.

Thank you all for the reviews and follows. Everyone has been amazing and sweet and I still can't believe you guys.

Here is the last snippet into Jareth's mind.


I cannot tell a story of a reunion between siblings without revealing his own thoughts on the matter. My husband was a man of many thoughts and emotions. He lived, lost, and loved fiercely.

When arranging this memoir, I found the journals he wrote in. I wasn't sure if he would allow his thoughts and memories to be public, but then someone reminded me of all he fought for so he could live and see his children safe. He would have given me the simplest answer: yes, he would allow it.

These will be the last look into our world through his eyes.

(Excerpt from Jareth's Journal)

October 2nd

It is strange to have seen the woman Luna has grown into. She'd been immortalized as a seventeen-year-old in my mind for so long. Seeing her as a grown woman close to forty with her own family is something I never imagined. Listening to her as she speaks of her children and the charities that help young girls and women has made me proud, despite all the hurt that has come over the years.

I asked her if she wished to talk to Albany, but she shook her head. She had come to terms with what happened long ago. Lucan could decide for himself, but she had no intentions of seeing him. Dear lord, do I even know the man I once called a friend? A man who took advantage of my younger sister and then lied to my face about her disappearance?

Had I been that preoccupied with my own life back then? So preoccupied that I didn't notice that my own sister was going through something that horrific? She says she doesn't blame me, but how I cannot understand. I was an appalling brother and guardian.

Lucan, my nephew, seems to be a well-adjusted young man. He spoke saying that he bore no ill wishes on the man who fathered him. He said he mostly felt sorry for him. It wasn't until Luna left the room for a moment that he made a comment, wondering just how many siblings he might have from the same behaviour. If he'd ran out his mother, how many other girls had he done the same to? He'd only come along to look into the face of the man who gave him half his makeup. He wanted to see just who he resembled for the first time in his life, never believing her when she told him he looked very much like his uncle whom he had never met.

He really does look more like our side of the family than Albany's.

It was after Sarah went to lie down that Luna gave me more insight into her story, a part of the story which she didn't want to share in front of Sarah in her condition. Sarah mentioning the child in the blanket wasn't as much of a coincidence as it seemed to be when I first looked into it.

Somehow, Ashton tracked her down not long after Lucan had been born. She never understood how, but he'd managed it. By then she'd had a decent way of life and was surprised at seeing him. She had made friends in the small community of women who took her in. She spoke of a girl named Mari who had been sent away from her home for wanting to keep her child. They had been due around the same time, but unlike Luna, who pulled through the ordeal with little trauma, Mari bled out before they could save her. Lucan was only a week old when it happened.

It was another two weeks before Ashton appeared, walking into the room where she had been feeding the girl as she had decided to nurse them both while she could. He had assumed, as she was feeding a child, that child had to be his. Another girl had been watching Lucan, thankfully. She fought him off for a few days before another told her to give him the female child and keep her son for herself. Giving the orphan to a wealthy family couldn't be that bad, could it? A future for the child who had no family?

She regrets it now, seeing how our Society turned out to be. I remember Ashton's daughter's marriage, she had only been sixteen at the time he arranged it, another way to gain a step up in Society.

That was only four years ago.

Now, I wonder if I can even protect my own daughters. Even Lincoln will have his own set of rules to live by. Sarah never thought much about the other side of the situation, but how do you shape a society you deem perfect without shaping the young men of the society, as well? It had been a sad day when Sarah came to ask me what her father meant when he said Toby was being sent off for training.

It had been only a few years into the new regime and the mandatory training in the military. All young boys, from the ages of eleven to sixteen, were trained in various forms of combat and armoury. With all the uncertainty that came with raising daughters, she wept after learning that even young boys were being corrupted, bred to be the ideal citizen. There was no escape for anyone, male or female.

(Except from another journal)

I am worried about Sarah, but then again, I am worried about much lately.

Lincoln is thriving. It is so different, yet still so similar having a son versus a daughter. I don't think I have ever been intentionally jealous over the amount of time Sarah spends with them as newborns, but I swear, I have seen him smirk my way before he starts nursing. Our little man is already such a ladies' man when it comes to company coming over to see him. He puts on a good show, but we know now that his temper was much worse than Emmeline's when she was colicky.

Sarah has been off lately, but I've seen it before, the wave of emotions after a birth. Though this time something is different and I have not been able to place my finger on it until today.

I found her in the nursery, and when I reached out to her in the dimly lit room, she jumped, her large green eyes wide as she turned in fear. She silently pleaded with her eyes for me to keep my distance. It always seemed to be worse after having a child, her memories always more pronounced, more real to her in the aftermath of childbirth. This was not the first time we'd been through this. Seeing her so terrified only brought me back to find her crying in the corner of her bathroom, a reminder of a night that still haunts me. A night full of guilt for bringing her into my home and treating her in such a way.

I breathed her name quietly. She hadn't been lying when she told Luna she still had her nights. Nights when a simple thing turned her mind into a fast spinning wheel, the anxiety and fears overpowering her own reality.

I had followed her to the nursery after I felt her avoid me in our large bed. Lincoln was sleeping soundly in his cradle as we silently communicated. I must have turned to her in my sleep, my body betraying my sleeping mind as I woke up in a rather stiff predicament, the only explanation I had to her sudden retreat from our bed. Even after all this time, I wait for her encouragement, waiting to know if this is what she wants.

It took a moment before she could speak, rambling on about dreams and how this could all be a dream. That she might wake up one morning and see Dinah in the dining room, that only Emmeline might exist in the universe but she wouldn't be mommy. Something was off here, too, as if she knew that something was going to happen that she could feel in her bones.

I want to tell her that it will be all right, but we both know that truth. Things have been too quiet, even the President has been quiet since the whole tea incident. I have mail sitting beside me as I write this that I am too afraid to open, not wanting to know what they are expecting from us. If we had been any other family, I am sure there would have been harsher punishments, that we may not all be alive at the moment.

That is the thought that frightens me more than anything in the world at the moment.

For Immediate Confidential Reading by Lord Lutin

Vice President to Clandestine,

After much deliberation and consideration of your family's participation in the incident last fall, we have come to an agreement for a suitable compromise for their unknown involvement.

Ivan Edwards, the grandson of the President, is nearing the age of release from service. Afterwards, he will be continuing on at the university to follow in his father's footsteps.

We all know how important it is for our young men to have a symbol of encouragement, a future to look forward to so they make it through the trials of training and studies with pride.

We suggest a betrothal between the two children of these prominent families. A union that can benefit each family. We hope that they may form and grow into a friendship, one which will be a basis for a stable marriage once Ivan has finished his training and studies. By that time he will be able to provide for a family and your daughter, Emmeline Byrd, will be of legal age for marriage.

This offer should be accepted within one week of arrival so that we may prepare the necessary paperwork. As well, we are sure your wife will wish to plan a special celebration to commemorate the occasion, as it is truly a joyous occasion for your family with such a distinguished match being made.

Cordially,

Simon Fiery

Secretary of State


Please don't kill me….Please, don't come after me with all the pitchforks for what I finally revealed to you after all these chapters.

I had to do it, and I knew early on that when Sarah was writing this that Jareth was no longer with her. How far into the future and when it happens you'll find out in another two chapters.

Next chapter is being written at the moment. Hopefully won't be too long as I wish to have this wrapped up by the end of October. This story has had a year in the making and I'm looking forward to some downtime.

Also, side note... I just realized Jareth journal entry is October 2nd...that is the day I first uploaded the story I believe...this is a coincidence i never intended to make haha

Tina